Homespun vitality salvages "Greendale," rocker Neil Young's second
foray into making a feature film that's more of a narrative than a straight-up concert
documentary. Written and directed by Young under the wry pseudonym Bernard
Shakey, "Greendale" offers fans an album's worth of music from the auteur and
his backup group Crazy Horse. The difference is that the soundtrack tunes, shambling
affairs primarily sung by Young and lip-synced by the actors, make up a folk-rock
song cycle in the service of a latter-day "Our Town." Young's script means to
shine a light on the lives of citizens in a small California community. Most
of the screen time is spent on members of the Green family, including curmudgeonly
Grandpa (Ben Keith), his artsy son, Earl, and Earl's vivacious activist daughter,
Sun (Sarah White). All is relatively mellow until Cousin Jed (Eric Johnson),
dogged by a slick, red-suited figure representing the Devil, gets himself in
a heap o' serious trouble. The naïve tone, the neo-hippie, anti-authoritarian,
eco-conscious spirit and the shaky, blown-up Super 8 video look of "Greendale" might
be perceived as willful modern primitivism. Like Young's 1982 effort "Human Highway," it's
crude, amateurish and drags at times, but it has an earnest, untutored appeal
that can carry along the acquiescent.